Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Overwhelmed with woe; immersed in grief or sorrow; also, sorrowful; rueful; indicating woe or distress: as, a woebegone look.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Beset or overwhelmed with woe; immersed in grief or sorrow; woeful.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective affected by or full of grief or woe
  • adjective worn and broken down by hard use

Etymologies

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Examples

  • It stood crouched, with tail between its legs, like a miserable and woe-begone dog.

    LOVE OF LIFE 2010

  • A man of soft civilization, sitting at a desk, would have grown lean and woe-begone on the fare that kept Kama and Daylight at the top-notch of physical efficiency.

    Chapter IV 2010

  • It stood crouched, with tail between its legs, like a miserable and woe-begone dog.

    LOVE OF LIFE 2010

  • And because her voice is limited to squeaks, exhalations and woe-begone sighs, it's hard to stay interested unless you happen to be on a dancefloor at 4am, which is probably the only sensible place to hear it.

    Kylie Minogue: Aphrodite 2010

  • The first time I saw Miss Trevanion, I thought she had been studying the character of the tragic muse, she looked so woe-begone.

    The Curate and His Daughter, a Cornish Tale 2008

  • US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates made a grand tour of countries supposedly threatened by Russia (in addition to visiting his new friends in Kosovo), though only the woe-begone Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili bothered meeting him at the airport.

    Russian-EU-NATO relations: Cold War shivers 2008

  • But the servant, with her dragging step and woe-begone look, was silent when she saw that the door of the apartment was open, and that the most insinuating of the three dowagers was standing on the landing to be the first to speak with the confessor.

    A Second Home 2007

  • But the servant, with her dragging step and woe-begone look, was silent when she saw that the door of the apartment was open, and that the most insinuating of the three dowagers was standing on the landing to be the first to speak with the confessor.

    A Second Home 2007

  • But when Lincoln arrived on the island and called on a Republican colleague, he wore a "woe-begone look" on his face and carried a dour message: he said he feared he'd made a mistake in coming to New York and that he had to hole up and work on his speech.

    Lincoln's Great Depression 2005

  • He bowed with frigid politeness; but Lucien, woe-begone, haggard, and undone, forgot to return the salutation.

    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris 2007

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